Our view: Vote YES on Question 3

Sunday

Oct 28, 2018 at 12:08 AMOct 28, 2018 at 12:08 AM

State ballot questions sometimes get a reputation for being convoluted to the point that reasonable people entering a polling place go in believing they are supporting something that aligns with their personal beliefs, only to cast their votes for the exact opposite.

Such is the case with this year’s Question 3, which seeks to affirm an existing 2016 law that rightly bans discrimination based on gender identity. However, given that ballot measures are often put in place to either institute new rules or contradict existing ones, voters could be forgiven for wondering why they are being called upon to rubber stamp something the Legislature took care of two years ago.

The truth is that this ballot initiative is backed by a group of individuals opposed to the law, and who likely worked to get this confusing question on the ballot in the hopes that a sufficient number of confused voters would inadvertently help to roll it back.

Although characterized as a so-called “bathroom bill,” the 2016 law is actually considerably broader. In short, it added gender identity to a long list of things that people cannot discriminate against, a list that already included race, religious creed, disability and gender. Yes, it did allow individuals who identified with, but were not necessarily born as, a particular gender to use the public restroom of their choosing, but it also banned discrimination against someone based on gender identity at any place of business used by members of the general public.

At the time it was approved, some fixated on the bathroom issue as a matter of public safety, arguing that would-be predators would take advantage of the law’s wording to infiltrate restrooms of the opposite gender to spy on or attack an innocent person. Specifically, some claimed that a certain type of man would use the wording of the law as a pretense for entering a women’s restroom with the intent of harassing or attacking them.

That false concern for women’s safety is the stated reasoning of Keep MA Safe, one of the groups spearheading the effort to overturn the 2016 law. And it would be an effective argument, if there were a shred of truth to it.

Facts, however, indicate otherwise. Two weeks ago, researchers at the Williams Institute, a think tank based out of the UCLA School of Law, released a comprehensive study looking at reports of restroom-related crimes in a half-dozen similarly-sized Massachusetts cities between 2014 and 2016. Specifically, it looked at three cities that had, prior to the implementation of the state law, put local bylaws in place that allowed for gender-identity use of bathroom, and three that had not. Not surprisingly, except perhaps to the folks at Keep MA Safe, the study’s authors found no statistically significant difference in terms of the number of such crimes. Interestingly, the rates of bathroom-related crimes were actually higher in the communities without the anti-discriminatory bylaws.

It is worth noting that anyone – regardless of gender or gender identity – who attacks, harasses, or otherwise violates the privacy of someone in a public bathroom would be subject to criminal prosecution.

Unfortunately, these facts will likely have little impact on those whose true issue revolves less around bathrooms and more about people who are transgender. Nor is it likely to stop opportunistic lawmakers across the country from using their position as a moral high ground from which they can inflict withering, and too often, successful attacks that play upon people’s fears and prejudices.

Fortunately, two years ago lawmakers in Massachusetts saw this barely cloaked discrimination against transgender people for what it was, and approved this law. Now it is up to the people of Massachusetts to stand up for the rights of everyone, and endorse this law by voting yes on Question 3.